By Tiernan Ray

Evercore Partners tech analyst Patrick Wang today offers up clients some notes from his trip through Silicon Valley last week, ranging across a number of semiconductor names.

ARM Holdings (ARMH) may benefit, he thinks, as Apple (AAPL) “will introduce the first 64-bit ARM-based chip this year,” according to his conversations (he doesn’t say from where he derives that notion.) “This bodes well for ARMH as v8 designs drive richer royalty rates.” Wang doesn’t elaborate on whether he’s expecting an iMac, a laptop, or a resuscitation of the server line at Apple.

“The ramp of big.LITTLE parts at multiple vendors (Samsung, MTK, HiSilicon, etc) in 2H13 will also help given the royalty adder and sheer number of shipped cores.” Wang has an Overweight rating on ARM shares and a $50 price target.

Applied Micro Circuits (AMCC), which he rates Overweight, with a $13 price target, showed him a demo of its “X-Gene” server processor, based on ARM’s architecture, which he thinks should “cement their lead in this nascent market.” He also talked to Cavium (CAVM) about their “Project Thunder” silicon, which may sample by the first quarter of next year and could be “the third legitimate player for 64-bit LP [low power] server chips in 2014.”

Wang thinks server chip trends are shaping up a little better for Intel (INTC) at the moment than some might think:

Our checks indicate stable and more robust Romley trends through March, perhaps driving upside to generally low investor expectations. This server strength appears somewhat broad-based, covering Cloud / direct as well as more traditional Enterprise customers. While a positive for VLTR (VLTR) 1Q trends, our LT concerns remain. We also heard about recent price cuts to AMD (AMD) Opteron in order to keep up with INTC. As we previously wrote (note), AMD’s x86 Opteron roadmap may be nearing its end.

He rates Intel shares Equal Weight with a $22 price target.

Lastly, he sees Broadcom, his “top pick” among chip makers, as benefitting from both Samsung Electronics and Apple phone introductions this year:

Our checks continue to indicate a back-end loaded year for AAPL (OW, $461.91, covered by R. Cihra) phone and tablet product launches. This as a catalyst for BRCM and will start in 2Q13 as phones use a BCM4334 rev (not 4335 like GS4) and tablets adopt BCM4324 (MIMO). Notably, this enhances the sizeable ongoing Samsung GS4 ramp which began in 1Q13.

He rates Broadcom shares Overweight with a $40 price target.

Update: Wang, in response to an email request, clarifies that he thinks Apple will use 64-bit ARM cores not in servers or desktops but in phones and tablets this year:

The key advantages of going to 64b is that most enterprise and server class applications are coded in 64b rather than 32b. I think there’s a good chance we see 64b chips in devices later this year. I’m not expecting them to adopt 64b ARM chips in their desktop or notebook line-up… perhaps a hybrid / convertible device bridging the Ultrabook and iPad in 2H14.

Update 2: ARM Holdings director of marketing Ian Thornton was in town today and was kind enough to stop by the Barron’s offices. We talked a little bit about 64-bit in mobile devices, which he said was not as crazy as it might sound. There are decent reasons one might include such capability in phones and tablets, though he had nothing specific to say about Apple.

For one thing, there isn’t much of a power hit from a 64-bit device, he argues, supporting Wang’s take on the subject.

“You need some extra registers for the addressing, but it’s not dramatically more” in terms of resource consumption versus 32-bit, from a thermal standpoint, says Thornton.

“You wouldn’t want to do it in a thoughtless way, but it can certainly be done” he said of inclusion in mobile devices.

In terms of advantages, there could be a cost benefit to any vendor shipping both mobile devices and traditional desktop and server devices, to having silicon standardized on 64-bit, rather than building or purchasing silicon for 32-bit and 64-bit as distinct parts.

Also, the limit on memory addressing with 32-bit is 4 gigabytes, and with 64-bit, not only could mobile devices move beyond 4 gigs — a stretch, it’s true, when today’s smartest smartphones max out at 2 gigs — but they could also combine RAM addressing with support for “memory-mapped I/O,” says Thornton, such as having dedicated registers for peripherals support. That could certainly be useful in some mobile devices, Thornton imagines.

About Tech Trader Daily

Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron’s veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: techtraderdaily@barrons.com.